


new immortal, old tricks

by Tori_Scribbles



Series: a family's lives [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: BAMF Nile Freeman, Canon-Typical Violence, Everyone Is Gay, Families of Choice, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Immortality Anxiety, Nile Freeman With a Sword, Nile Thinks Exile Is Stupid, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rites of Passage, Slice of Life, Sparring, Swords, Swords Are A Queer Girls Dream, Swords Used To Bond With Family, Team as Family, Unconventional Families, immortal husbands and their immortal daughter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:54:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26823976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tori_Scribbles/pseuds/Tori_Scribbles
Summary: Just when Nile thinks the fight is over, Joe and Nicky’s eyes meet and suddenly they’re moving again. Nicky’s leg shoots up, twisting around the blade uncaring as it cuts into his skin as he twists it out of her grip. Andy turns the scimitar on him but Nicky is already rolling up to his feet, sword in hand. Andy has to duck back to avoid his swing and dodges out of the way of Joe’s lunge, her blade pressed back against his heart as Nicky’s sword is poised dangerously at her back.The three of them meet each other’s eyes and their weapons drop as laughter fills the air.“Oh my God.” Nile pushes herself to sit upright with a grin of her own....Learning to handle a blade (or two) is a right of passage in the Old Guard.
Relationships: Andromache of Scythia & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova & Nile Freeman, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nile Freeman, Immortal Family - Relationship, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: a family's lives [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1941214
Comments: 12
Kudos: 99





	new immortal, old tricks

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've now read al the comics and watched the film another twelve times and now have Nile with swords!
> 
> Also the working title for this was just 'gays with swords' until the last second because I didn't know what to call it
> 
>  **Content Warnings:** Brief descriptions of blood from training injuries. Canon typical violence.

Nile lays back against her elbow on the grass, the sun pleasantly hot against her skin as she watches the men spar in front of her. The three of them had been training all morning, what had started as an actual work-out had descended into good entertainment when Nile had asked about the efficiency of swords in modern combat and both Nicky and Joe had been happy to demonstrate.

She wasn’t certain how they were showing their effectiveness against modern enemies as they just fought against each other, scimitar and longsword clashing together. Nile has known them for two months now, has seen them move in sync in everything they did whether in the kitchen or in battle. In the millennia they’d been alive they’d memorized everything about the other to the point where it seemed they were in each other's minds, knowing the others moves before they knew themselves. It made them a force of nature when fighting side by side but against each other it was a whole other story.

Nile can see that they are taking their fight seriously, but there is still a playful air around it when Joe laughs as he parries Nicky’s feint and swings around with a blow that makes Nicky stumble. Nicky taunts him with something in Arabic and the dance continues.

It's without a doubt the longest fight Nile has seen without someone dragging it out, they both know their opponent too well and both are just that good. 

“How long this time?” 

Nile looks up, squinting against the sun as Andy comes and stands next to her.

“At least half an hour,” Nile replies, looking back to the men who hadn’t reacted to Andy joining them but certainly knew she was there.

Andy hums as she assesses them and before Nile can protest at the new mortal with very little care of injuries she ducks between them, grabbing Joe’s sword arm, twisting him down. She follows through with the momentum and before Nicky can turn his sword on his new opponent, she’s using Joe’s sword to twist around the longsword as she kicks out his legs.

“Holy fuck,” Nile breathes, only gaping slightly as Andy effortlessly twirls the scimitar, letting it rest against Joe’s chest, the tip of the longsword pressing into the hollow of Nicky’s throat.

Just when Nile thinks the fight is over, Joe and Nicky’s eyes meet and suddenly they’re moving again. Nicky’s leg shoots up, twisting around the blade uncaring as it cuts into his skin as he twists it out of her grip. Andy turns the scimitar on him but Nicky is already rolling up to his feet, sword in hand. Andy has to duck back to avoid his swing and dodges out of the way of Joe’s lunge, her blade pressed back against his heart as Nicky’s sword is poised dangerously at her back.

The three of them meet each other’s eyes and their weapons drop as laughter fills the air.

“Oh my God.” Nile pushes herself to sit upright with a grin of her own. “I rest my case,” she says as Joe catches his blade that Andy tosses him with a flourish.

Joe moves to kiss Nicky softly. “You still think your guns can take us?” he asks her with a teasing grin as they pull apart to reach towards their glasses of juice.

“I already knew they couldn’t but swords are a whole other game,” she says with a slight shake of her head.

“I still think an axe is better.” Andy shrugs, sitting down on the grass next to Nile, stretching back her hand pressed against the still healing scar tissue on her side.

Nile scrunches up her nose in disagreement. “But _swords,”_ she stresses like the well rounded millennial that she is. She can’t deny that Andy with her labrys is a sight to behold, a whole experience in battle that makes it clearer than anything why she was once worshipped as a Goddess. But Nile had also grown up with historical movies and TV shows where men and women alike had swung swords through a battlefield and looked damned good while doing it. 

“Come here,” Nicky says, stepping back into the space, beckoning her forwards with a crook of his fingers.

Nile looks to the others in confusion but when Andy shrugs she pushes herself up to her feet and steps towards Nicky.

“Hey, Nile,” Joe calls out and as she turns towards him, she barely has a chance to register his scimitar arching through the air towards her before she's reaching out to grab the handle before it hits her in the face.

The sword is heavier than she’d thought it would be, the blade wanting to follow the weight down to the ground. 

“Blade up,” Nicky says and just as she raises her arm he’s swinging out towards her. His blow isn’t nearly full force but is still enough to knock her arm to the side and the weight pulls at her muscles. “How many swords have you held before?”

“One,” Nile says, then scrunches her nose, “two, I had a plastic one when I was nine and dressed as a pirate for a party.” 

“A Mameluke?” he asks, laughing at her look of confusion. “Your ceremonial blade. I believe the US Marines still use Mamelukes or they are derived from them.” 

Nile can still remember the weight of the blade in her hand as she’d been presented it for the first time, lighter than this one but heavy with a more symbolic weight. Her body still wants to move through the motions of the procedure that was drilled into her but she resists. 

“It’s frowned upon if you use them for anything more than drills,” she says, testing the weight of the scimitar as she tilts it from side to side.

“Weapons should not be used for symbolics,” Nicky says, “they should have a purpose to exist.” 

He raises his blade and steps back into a fighting position and Nile takes the hint and tries to copy his stance. Joe comes up behind her, nudging one of her feet back slightly, a gentle hand under her bicep, raising it up slightly.

“Swing first,” he says before he steps back and Nile looks back to Nicky’s patient gaze. She tries not to overthink herself as she slashes forward. Nicky knocks her blade to the side but she’s already pulling up to go for his abdomen, he blocks that with ease and she pulls back, keeping her blade up, ready as he jabs forward considerably slower than he’d done when sparring with Joe.

They trade blows and jabs, with no real force behind them for a while, Andy calling out pointers from her place on the grass and Joe occasionally demonstrating a move when she couldn’t quite get it. Nile’s muscles didn’t burn like they used to but the sweat dripping down her face and the sun beating against her skin almost made it feel the same. 

Nile had been the best hand to hand combatant in her unit but against these guys she felt like a clumsy child. But the three of them respect her skills and have helped to build on what she already knew, reteaching her moves that they disapproved of and taught her brand new ones. Once she got over the intimidation of it all and realised they were laughing with her, not at, she fell into a routine of training with them. 

They all teach her to advance her hand to hand and Nicky teaches her to accurately shoot his rifle, something she’d never really spent much time on before and while he teaches her to strip said rifle with her eyes closed he talks to her in Italian until she understands. Joe helps her advance her Arabic more in a few months than Afghanistan did in a year, she can read whole paragraphs aloud now and her lettering is more distinguishable than the squiggles it had been. 

Andy… Andy teaches her so much. How to throw knives and axes and then how to decapitate a man twelve different ways with those knives. She teaches her Russian when she finds Nile trying to teach herself online and most importantly - if you ask Andy - how to make two dozen different cocktails in a way that even their enhanced metabolism struggles to keep up.

When they talk even Booker teaches her new things, how to run the teams tech - just in case Copley crosses them again, he corrects her High School French pronunciation with only slightly exasperated sighs. In the early hours of the mornings, he reminds her that she’s not alone in her grief and she’s not the only one that knows what it’s like to drown every night. In return, she recommends some brands of sleeping aids and a book about PTSD and depression.

They spar well into the afternoon, only stopping when they start to grow hungry.

“You’ll be an expert swordsman in no time,” Joe promises as she passes his scimitar back to him, he wipes the blade down with a cloth before sliding it back into its sheath.

“You still hesitate though,” Nicky says, “your mind still makes you draw back in fear of injury instead of pushing forward. Even when sparring.” 

Nile thinks of the plane filled with drugs where she swung at Andy so hard she broke her leg and now she feels Andy’s eyes bare into the side of her head and knows she’s thinking the same.

She nods, draining the last of her drink. “I’ll work on it,” she says.

Joe slings an arm around her shoulders and tugs her with them towards the house, she wants to protest that they’re both sweaty and gross but she leans into his side anyway. “Food first though,” he says, “starving to death is not a pleasant way to go.” 

Nicky rolls his eyes fondly. “You are not starving to death, habibi.” 

.

It took two months of training daily with a lightweight blade that they’d just “happend to have lying around” before Nile managed to disarm Nicky and press her sword against his chest. The both of them had stared at each other for a beat before Joe whooped loudly from the sidelines, sweeping Nile off of her feet in celebration. She knew that they’d all been going easy on her while training, there was no way she was up to the standard they’d reached over the last millennia but still it felt satisfying knowing that she’d taken Nicky by surprise and gotten one up on him.

Later that night Nile lay on her bed, her phone pressed to her ear.

_“Bonsoir, ma chère.”_

Nile smiles. “How’d you know it was evening?” she asks.

At the other end of the line, Booker snorts. _“You’re in Malta are you not? It’s where they always go after hard missions.”_

It had been nearly five months since Merrick and despite the exile Nile is in frequent contact with Booker, mostly by text or email he is able to help her adjust in a way the others can’t, not for lack of trying, time just passes differently when you’ve been alive for over a millennia let alone several. She likes to think that as he guides her into immortal life she’s helping guide him into life again in turn. 

“We are,” she says, despite the fact that the others would probably protest at him knowing their location.

 _“You sound happy though,_ ” he replies, “ _better than last time at least.”_

The last time she’d called him was in the middle of the night, the ache of her family too painful to keep breathing through.

“I had a good day,” she tells him quietly, “I think I’ve started to get the hang of swords. I disarmed Nicky today.” 

Booker laughs. _“Bien joué! It’s not easy to best someone with a thousand years of experience.”_

“I know he was holding back but… he looked so surprised!” she says.

 _“He wouldn’t have let you win that’s for sure,”_ he says, “ _you’re doing well, kid.”_

Nile’s smile softens. “Thanks, Book.” 

_“I’ll tell you what, as I can’t celebrate with you in person. Go up in the attic, there’s something you might like,”_ he says.

She finds herself frowning in confusion. “Right now?” she clarifies.

 _“Maintenant,”_ he repeats. She pushes herself up off of her bed and slips out into the hallway. The house is quiet but she knows the others are still awake, Joe and Nicky in their room and Andy is… somewhere being ominous and Nile doesn’t want to explain herself even though she knows they’d told her to explore the villa us much as she’d like.

She tiptoes up the stairs, trying not to wince as the boards under her feet creak.

 _“Relax, you’re not going to wake anyone,”_ Booker laughs in her ear.

“What am I getting?” she hisses as she pushes open the attic door, the hinges screeching in protest.

 _“There’s a light cord to your right,”_ he instructs and she uses the light from her phone to find it, the old electrics hum softly and the bulb flickers twice before it lights up the room. The space is large, spread out above the whole villa but the floor is covered in… well, everything. There are stacks of old books, bindings falling apart, a cabinet of honest to God scrolls, paintings covered in dust cloths, a bust that looks remarkably like Nicky, a rack of spears, swords and bows, an old tower block computer, two large dressers, a dust covered corset laying on top of one.

Most of the things looked like they belonged in a museum, carefully protected instead of just stored in an attic. However here it all was, not a distant history of times barely remembered but memories of a select few.

 _“Nile?”_ Booker prompts and Nile remembers that she’s on the phone, supposedly looking for something specific and resists the urge to start digging through the stacks of art in front of her.

“Right,” she says. “Yeah, sorry. But _holy shit!”_

Booker chuckles. _“You should see the safe house in Norway,”_ he says, _“bigger book collection.”_

“You all- we travel with so little that it’s weird to think that you all have so much stuff,” she says.

_“Styles of clothing change too often, weapons too. We have to adapt to fit in, what you see is probably only a fraction of maybe the late nineteenth, early twentieth century.”_

Nile laughs, her fingers brushing over the top of a dark wooden chest, leaving deep grooves in the dust that lays there. Clearly nobody has been up here in a while. “I get how you’re all so rich now.” 

_“Some of us have shares like regular people,”_ he defends halfheartedly. _“Ask Joe about the art, he’ll love to go through it with you.”_

He sounds sad when he says it but she knows his words are true.

“So, what am I looking for?” she prompts as she looks around.

 _“There’s an old shoe rack, full of weapons to the left of the door behind a pillar, spears and bows on the coat hooks?”_ he says and she steps further into the space, ducking under a cobweb to get to the rack.

“Yeah, I got it.” 

Like he described, the hooks designed for coats have two spears and something that she thinks is a beautifully engraved recurve bow when she peaks under the cloth it's wrapped in.

 _“On the top of the rack, there’s something in a leather wrap. It’s yours,”_ he says softly.

“What-” 

_“Look, Nile. I’ve gotta go,” he says abruptly, continuing to talk as she tries to interrupt. “Hopefully it’s still in usable condition. Have fun and stay safe.”_

“Wha- Booker?!”

_“Stay outta trouble, kid.”_

The line cuts out in the middle of her protests and she curses him under her breath for avoiding a conversation. With a scowl she shoves her phone in her pocket and reaches for the leather wrap. She shakes off the dust, pressing one of her sleeves over her mouth and nose to stop herself choking to death and when it clears she lifts the item, unwrapping it with careful fingers. A curved sword lays across her palms, the sheath cracked but otherwise well preserved plain leather, the top and bottom wrapped in the same silver as the hilt of the sword. The handle is designed to arch around and over the person's knuckles in a way that probably has an actual name that Nile doesn’t know. 

She wraps her fingers around the cold handle and draws her arm back. The blade slides out with a soft noise that Nile has come to appreciate and she lifts it up into the light.

The blade is curved similarly to Joe’s scimitar but is surprisingly lighter in her hand, the engraved vine patterns that wrap around the hilt continue to twist down the blade.

“A Grande Armée sabre.” 

Nile startles, the thankfully blunt sword dropping against her arm as she swings around with several choice curses.

 _“Andy!_ What the fuck?” Nile takes a steadying breath, trying to regulate her heart rate. “Did nobody ever teach you not to sneak up on people with a sword in their hands?” 

Andy steps further into the attic with a careless shrug. “Several times,” she says, looking at the sword over Nile’s shoulder. “How is he?” she asks, her voice soft.

Nile shoots her a surpised look and get’s a flat one in return that makes Nile flush in embarrassment that she thought she could get something past any of them.

“He’s… quiet,” Nile says truthfully, his sharp wit and dry humour all but gone through their phone calls. “I know I’m not supposed to-” 

Andy shakes her head. “If we had an issue with it we would’ve stopped you months ago,” she says and takes the sword from Nile’s hand to inspect before she can say anything. “He made this a few years after he came to us. He never saw much use for swords as guns got more popular though.” 

Nile’s eyes widen as she takes the offered sword back. “He made this?”

Andy nods. “He’s an expert forger,” she says, a hint of something close to pride in her voice, “I’ve never seen anything he can’t copy. Documents, art, weapons even.” 

Nile slides the sabre back into its sheath. “What do I do with it?” she asks.

“Whatever you like,” she says, assessing the rest of the weapons on the rack, her fingers brush over the wrapped bow for a second, with that faraway look in her eye that means she’s thinking about Quynh. “It would go nicely with that scimitar you’ve been using.” 

“Using two?” 

Andy grins, resting a hand on the back of Nile’s neck. “Well you’ve already gotten good with one,” she says, “two should be no problem.” 

Nile laughs, letting her be led out of the attic, sword still in hand.

.

The next morning, as they step outside for training Nile, holds out the sabre for Joe to inspect at his questioning.

His eyes narrow as he recognises the hilt but he takes it anyway, running a finger down the centre of the blade.

“It’s still in good condition,” he says, swinging it in powerful arcs that whistle through the air. “I didn’t realise it was here.” He twists it around, holding the hilt to her. “You think you can fight with it?”

Nile wraps her hand around the grip and twirls her wrist experimentally. “I don’t see why not.” 

Joe picks up his scimitar from where it was resting on the grass and goes through the motions of what he calls a warm up and Nile calls showing off.

He swings out at her suddenly and as her arm shoots up to block the blow, the fight is on. She hops back to balance herself and they exchange light jabs as she gets used to the sabre. It’s a slightly lighter metal than the one she usually spars with so she’s able to move quicker to swing back. Joe knocks her to the floor and she pushes herself to roll backwards out of his reach.

“Here!”

Nile’s head whips towards Andy’s voice just in time to catch the other sword she tosses her. It feels strange in Nile’s non-dominant hand as she takes up her stance again, trying to adjust to the twin blades.

Opposite her, Joe’s smile widens and he’s moving again, fast enough that Nile struggles to keep up as she forgets that she can block with one arm and parry with the other at the same time. It makes her feel unbalanced and it’s almost a relief when he twists the sabre out of her hand with ease. She goes to toss her second sword to her dominant hand but Joe’s quicker, nicking his blade across her right hand. The pain is gone almost as quickly as it burns but Nile gets the point. Learn to adjust.

Fighting with her left hand feels clumsy and weak no matter how much she’s been trained to balance herself. She feints a slice to Joe’s left and when he goes to duck back from it she twists around, kicking him squarely in the chest, sweeping up her sabre in the same motion as he recovers with a laugh.

“Not bad,” he says, rolling his shoulders as he steps back into position and they go again.

He’s able to disarm her with ease every time, when one blade flies from her hand he has her keep going, either she recovers it or she tries to fight without it and eventually loses.

For what feels like the hundredth time she drops back on the grass with a dramatic groan, holding her right hand above her as she watches the skin down her forearm knit back together.

Joe takes her hand, wiping the blood away with a cloth that Nicky threw him. 

“You know, back in my day they used to tie your dominant hand behind your back to stop you doing stupid things like that,” Andy says, looking at them from above her sunglasses at the sidelines. 

“And mine,” Joe says with a wink.

Nicky snorts, picking up Nile’s blades she’d dropped, twirling them absently. “Mine too.” 

Nile rolls her eyes. “That sounds counterproductive if you want me to fight with two blades,” she says.

“To use twin blades your left has to be just as strong as your right,” Andy says with that tone that says ‘I’ve been alive longer than swords, listen to what I say, kid.’

Nile huffs and an hour later both her and Nicky find themselves sparring with their non-dominant hands and the other tied behind their backs. At first she thinks it’s ridiculous but every time she instinctively tugs at her right arm to balance or block she starts to see the point. 

She’s reliant on what she’s used to. If in a fight she can’t use her right hand for whatever reason, she has to be able to use her left to the same skill level and she can’t learn to do that if she keeps throwing her right hand up to keep her from falling flat on her face.

“I knew there was a reason I wanted to be ambidextrous as a kid,” she says, scrunching up her nose as she tries to focus on twirling the hilt around the back of her hand and catching it again without fumbling.

“Is it not more fun this way?” Joe asks, not looking up from whatever he was sketching in his book.

Nile huffs. She wants to make a quip about being tied up with a sword in her hand isn’t her idea of a good time but not only is it not entirely truthful but she expects it’ll get her a story about one of their sex lives that’ll make her never want to meet their eye again.

“Just wait for the bit of your training where you’re tied up without a sword, that’s arguably less fun,” Andy says with a teasing smile on her lips. “What’s the cut off point? Forty seconds to escape or you fail?” 

“I thought it was thirty,” Nicky says with a considering tilt of his head and Nile really hopes they’re joking.

She shakes her head, flexing her fingers on her bound hand that hasn’t gone numb even after however long it's been and however much she’s been tugging on it. “I look forward to it,” she says, sarcasm dripping through her tone. “Is this how you guys always pass time? Coming up with and reimagining new training methods?” 

Nicky shrugs. “When you have served in as many armies as we have, you will have learnt all the most useful ways of doing things,” he says.

“And then you put a creative spin on them to stop them from getting old,” Joe puts in with an easy smile.

They’ve trained almost every day since they’ve been in Malta, using a mixture of methods that Nile knows well and creative and downright dangerous games that are both helpful and stop it from getting boring. Apparently their version of capture the flag is also on their list to run with her but not until Andy is fully healed and they’re somewhere more secluded - Nile doesn’t know how she feels about the sound of that.

After lunch Andy suggests blindfolds and Nile shakes her head to sit this round out, resting back against a tree to watch Joe and Nicky spar, their eyes covered. Andy sits next to her, a little disgruntled that they wouldn’t go against her without their vision for the risk of seriously doing damage and Nile can’t help but side against her as she watches Nicky and Joe.

They stand poised opposite each other, Joe’s head tilted to the side as they listen for the other to take the first move. Nicky’s sniper’s patience holds out and Joe swings out first, his blade whipping through the air the only guide Nicky has as he brings his own around.

“It’s harder for them out here,” Andy says, her voice low. “So many outside noises, the ocean, birds, the wind. But we’ve fought in worse conditions.” 

Nile wants to say that it’s unlikely in this day and age for them to be fighting anyone in total darkness without anyone having some sort of artificial lighting but since hearing their stories she’s learnt never to assume.

“They know each other's fight patterns though,” Nile comments, “surely that makes it easier to anticipate the other’s next move?” 

Andy hums softly, not taking her eyes off of her brothers. “But when you know your opponent is anticipating your next move it’s easier to throw them off.” 

As if on queue Joe goes to turn away from where he thinks Nicky’s going to jab and instead slices his arm right down the longsword with a startled cry of pain.

Nicky’s blindfold is off in an instant, his sword falling to the floor as he reaches towards Joe, murmuring apologies for the already healed injury.

“Training without vision teaches us not to overthink as much,” Andy says and Nile sags back against the tree slightly. “Thinking things through isn’t a bad thing, as long as it doesn’t make you hesitate.” 

Nile knows she holds back still, especially with swords in her hands. They can do much more damage than just hand to hand combat and although Nicky and Joe reassure her that they’ll heal and barely bat an eyelid to their own blood, Andy is a walking reminder that that may not always be the case. When training, a live weapon in her hands, Nile can’t always push away the thought that if she slips and hurts one of them and they don’t heal, she’ll have to live with that for hundreds of years. 

The uncertainty of their immortality gives her more anxiety than she cares to admit and tries to abide by Nicky’s “when it’s our time, it’s our time” motto but she finds it easier to apply it to herself than those around her. Nile sometimes feels like she’s known grief for as long as she can remember. The dull ache of loss for her father presses down on her whenever she remembers him is now joined by the grief she has for her mom and brother, though they’re still alive she grieves for them the same and the feeling threatens to bring her to tears whenever she thinks on it for too long.

She can’t comprehend what mourning feels like after centuries but she sees the way Andy sags when she mentions Lykon, a man she fought with and loved for hundreds of years. She’s seen what grief has done to Booker, the loss of his children haunt him like two hundred years haven’t passed. She tries not to think about how much Andy’s death would hurt her let alone the rest of her family. 

Joe told her once that with their lifespan, the only thing they can truly rely on is each other, everything else changes or fades too fast. The experiences they share nobody else in the world could understand and while their bond is so much stronger for it, it also makes the pain so much more agonising.

Andy bumps her shoulder against Nile’s and she realises that all three immortals are looking at her with patient yet concerned expressions.

“You okay?” Joe asks.

Nile nods and laughs at herself to brush away their concern. “Yeah, sorry. What did you say?” 

“Wanna try?” Nicky asks, holding a blindfold towards her and Nile - never one to say no to a challenge - grins.

.

The first planned mission Nile goes on with the team is what Andy calls a milk run. Copley’s found them a political hostage situation the day before a government is voting on a major policy reform. The kidnapping has been covered up well which makes the whole operation smoother, Copley sends the corrupt SWAT team to a secondary location and gives the team the all clear to move in.

They’ve finally convinced Andy to keep the kevlar on despite how much it “gets in the way of her labrys” and are now hunched down as Nicky takes out the guards walking the perimeter with ease.

“Well armed, looks like private contractors,” Joe says, shoving the binoculars into the rucksack at his feet.

“Messy then,” Andy says as she checks her magazine.

Nile’s hand drifts from her sidearm on her hip back to one of the swords strapped to her back, reassuring herself that they’re still there. She’s trained with these people for months now and she feels the adrenaline spreading through her system as her heart pounds in her chest, but she can’t deny it feels so much different to all the other ops she’s ever run. 

Different weapons, different armour and different people at her back.

She looks towards the illuminating glow of the nearby town and sighs, her grip tightening on her rifle.

Same stakes.

“Let’s keep it respectful,” she mutters under her breath and when she looks to her right it’s Nicky that catches her eye, not Dizzy, but he nods the same like he understands what she’s trying to say.

On Andy’s mark, they move in and fan out. Nicky and Andy go left while Joe and Nile creep around to the right. 

Joe’s scimitar slices through the first guy’s throat, silencing his scream before it comes. Nile covers him as he lowers the guy to the floor. She shoots a silenced round straight through the guard ahead who spots them and rushes forward to silence his radio that he’s left crackling, trying to not focus on the guy's black eyes staring up at him.

She waits for Joe to catch up with her and they round the corner to the back of the building where the backdoor is closed but unguarded. 

“Give me light,” Joe mutters as he kneels down to inspect the lock. Nile pulls the flashlight out of her pocket, shining it behind her before turning back to scan the surrounding area. Two figures round the corner at the other end of the building and Nile lowers her Glock as she recognises Andy and Nicky.

Her eyes automatically scan over them both as they draw closer, Nicky’s sword is stained red but otherwise there’s no sign of a struggle.

When Joe’s finished rigging the lock, Nile kills the flashlight, shoving it away and trades her Glock for her rifle as she steps back so he can get cover behind the wall. He holds up three fingers and Nile tenses in anticipation as he starts to countdown. The door blows out on one and they’re pushing in.

The corridor is lit almost painfully bright as mercenaries round the end, shouting orders in a language that Nile doesn’t know but shoots first instead of asking questions. She cries out as a bullet tears into her shoulder and presses further into Andy to shield her as they push on.

The end of the corridor opens up into a large room and Nile tosses her rifle aside as the magazine clicks and she doesn’t have time to reload as more guys are advancing on them. She draws her swords and barely has a chance to take a stance before the mercenaries are on them. He raises his gun towards her and she knocks it aside with her scimitar and drives her sabre up into his ribs, already turning to her next opponent before she’s fully drawn it back.

They’ve clearly caught these people by surprise, however well armed they are they clearly weren’t expecting company that was going to put up an actual fight - especially not company wielding weapons older than them all combined.

Wielding the swords for this long makes Nile ache in a way that combat never has before, but the pain fades almost as quickly as it appears.

With the element of surprise on their side, the four of them cut through their attackers with few injuries to themselves - well, the older three seem relatively unscathed as the last mercenary slumps to the floor whereas Nile’s jacket is almost in tatters from the bullets she’s taken. Her shirt and pants are sticking to her skin uncomfortably with her own now cold blood and she really isn’t looking forward to the time it’ll take to unbraid her hair tonight.

“All still with me?” Andy calls out, sounding a little out of breath herself.

“Yeah, Boss.” 

“I’m good.” 

Nile nods, swallowing the lump in her throat as she looks away from the bodies on the floor. “Yeah.” 

“On me,” is all Andy says and they’re moving again, falling in behind her as she reaches towards the only closed door. She kicks it open and takes point as they file into the room.

The politician they’re looking for, Kamir, is being held back against the final mercenary as a human shield, a knife pressed against his throat.

The mercenary shouts something to them that Nile doesn’t understand, no doubt a threat but Nicky is quicker, his sidearm raised as the mercenary crumples to the floor with a bullet between his eyes.

Kamir slumps forward in relief and Andy steps forward, talking to him in calm Romanian. He seems to calm at her words and she uses her knife to cut away his zip ties.

Nile looks down at the swords in her hands, they’re dripping red down onto the floor and now that the adrenaline is starting to wear off she feels like they’re weighing her down.

How many people had she cut through?

She looks back through the door to the bodies littering across the concrete but Joe steps in front of her, blocking her view.

“Here,” he says handing her a cloth that may or may not have been used to waterboard someone from the only table in the room

She props her scimitar against the wall to take the cloth, using it to wipe down the blade of the sabre, it’s not perfectly clean, it’ll need properly cleaning when they get back but for now, she’s able to slide it back into its sheath and reaches for her second blade. She can still feel the way they sliced through her attacker's skin, she can taste the blood that’s not her own running down her face. But she’s alive, they’re all alive, Andy looks relatively unscathed and they’ve got their target.

A mission well done.

Nile slides her scimitar away, finding the weight on her back reassuring. In close combat, they served her well and she thought she’d done well with them in her hands. No doubt Andy would point out a mistake she made later but Nile had kept them in her hands and hadn’t died, she counted that as a win.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Translations:**  
>  Bonsoir, ma chère - Good evening, my dear  
> Bien joué - well done  
> Maintenant - right now
> 
> You can find me [here](purplepingupenguins.tumblr.com) on tumblr.
> 
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated


End file.
